Session 14

"Spike!"

The shrill scream wrenched Jet awake. Ein tumbled to the floor from his lap with a startled yelp as Jet nearly toppled there himself, only saving himself with a quick catch on the edge of the seat. Dashing underneath the bed, Ein hid there, peaking out and blinking the sleep from his eyes. Jet whipped a glance at the medical monitors, the readout hadn't altered. Spike's pulse remained steady as ever, stubbornly refusing to change.

Ed's white-knuckled grip on the edges of her computer alarmed him. There were only a handful of times he had seen fear from her.

Pushing up to his feet, he joined her at the bedside. "What is it?" On the screen he watched the black rise up like a shutter lifting. A bleak bone-riddled landscape of a deep pit appeared. At the lower edges of the image … blood covered fingers pressed against the ground. The image shifted wildly reminding him of someone unsteady on their feet. "Wait … is that … did it work?"

"Yes yes!" Ed frantically smashed the keys on the keyboard. "Sound … sound is vibration. Vibrations the eye might pick up. Sensitive. Very sensitive. Need the program."

His heart raced at the image. In the vision, if Spike was getting up, he wasn't moving very fast. They couldn't see much other than the graven ground. If he'd understood Ed's jargon correctly, the kid was about to pull off another fantastic feat. "Do you think it will work?"

"Sound is vibration." She repeated hunching tighter over the keyboard. "Just need the program that untangles it." No sing song tone, no rocking back and forth. The kid was hard as a rock, steel-eyed as she stabbed the keys. "And here we go … please work!"

After she hit the key, a window appeared with a fish graphic swimming around the word Buffering … "Come on! Work! Give us Spike's words! Let us hear him speak."

The fish graphic swallowed the word and vanished …

Harsh breathing crackled over the speakers. The sound was raw, synthesized through the program—but they could hear Morpheus's slow laughter over the panted breaths. "Oh yes. They have taken your physical bodies from my building, but no matter. Trapped on life support this only means we get to do this longer. I am the master of patience. I told you no matter what happens to you here, you cannot die in my realm. Eventually you will be completely under my control. It will be so much simpler if you surrender. But you just don't give up."

"No. I don't." Spike looked up, affording them a monoscopic-vision of the robed madman, looking spry as ever upon a raised dais, the floor between them shimmering with a veritable river of blood littered with skeletons. "Kind of a bad habit of mine."

"Stubborn." Morpheus held out a hand. "Just like your father."

"Huh?" Every breath was hitched, forced in and out. "How the fuck would you know?"

The answering smile was chilling. "Because … I knew him."

Jet's blood ran cold as he stared unblinking at the screen. His hand clamped on Ed's shoulder, "Don't close that program!"

Spike's legs trembled beneath him, nausea raked him stemming from a stabbing pain behind his right eye. He couldn't spare a hand to try and massage it away. His suit was torn, the sodden strips of cloth more blackish-purple than blue now. The flesh beneath bled from the relentless savage poundings. For a moment he hung his head, trying to catch his breath, hand gripping the slice along his ribs, hot blood seeping out between his fingers.

There was no escape now. It was hopeless, but he would not lay down. That wasn't his way.

Around his right ankle Morpheus had manifested a chain, the other end attached to a massive stone monument easily twice his height.

A chain … like one might use for a dog. I am not a dog!

For the countless time, he tried to imagine the links separating. Focusing long and hard, sweat beaded on his forehead, pouring down in rivulets. The pointless effort left him lightheaded and staggering to catch his weight against the stone, only keeping his feet by his shoulder rammed against the surface.

Escape was impossible as his will power bled away through his fingers. He would not beg for release. He knew that would prove futile. As futile as the hits who'd pleaded with his own gun for mercy …

"Spike, aren't you proud of what you've done? The life you've led?"

He didn't have time to suss out what Morpheus's taunt had meant. A nearby skeleton rose up in a shuddering gait toward him, mist fleshed out the body. Vicious manifested before him, steel-eyed and with a sneer on his face. "You are nothing but a failure." The katana hissed like a snake's venomous kiss as he drew it from the scabbard.

Spike gritted his teeth as sweat blossomed on his forehead anew. He shambled backward, scraping across the surface of the stone, trying to evade the sword strike. This was hardly the first time Morpheus had thrown Vicious at him.

This isn't real. This body isn't real. These injuries are not real. None of this is real. None of this can hurt you!

An intense pain tore through his gut. He looked down, his bloodied hands gripping the blade thrust a third of its length into his stomach. His head fell back, staring up into Vicious victorious smile. He couldn't breathe against the shaft of metal. His foot slipped in the blood slick on the floor.

This … isn't … real …

"This is how it usually goes with most victims who defy my gift of their dreams." Morpheus stalked down into the chamber imprisoning Spike and laughed low. "I get to dig into the dark corners, force all the skeletons out of the closet. And oh, you. My my, what a rare treat. You don't have a closet—you have an entire mausoleum."

"Bas … tard … "

Morpheus chuckled. "Amusing that you would say that considering the sins of your past. What would your victims say?" With a wave of his hand more skeletons rose to a chorus of cries.

"Don't do this! I'm loyal!" "I didn't! I was framed!" "Please, I didn't have a choice!" "Let me go, I'll disappear … you'll never see me again." "You can't kill me, I have a family!"

Spike tried to cover his ears, but his fingers refused to relinquish the grip on the sword blade. Vicious's harsh judgmental glare and cold voice bore into him, "Spike, there is nothing in this world that can wash the blood from your hands … why would you want to even try? This is what you are."

"Fuck you! No … you never understood me!" Spike's foot slipped, the blade jarring in his gut. "Ahhh!"

With a laugh, Morpheus circled the monolith. "For all this, it is not the crux of that chapter of your life. No. His betrayal was hard enough, but it was because of what it ultimately cost you …" he snapped his fingers.

Over the past days Morpheus had already forced Spike to face a virtual conga line of victims and comrades alike. The fighting barely ended before it started again leaving him hovering in a perpetual state just above death … wishing for a death that would never come.

There is one enemy you can never run far enough from—the one within yourself. Spike laid his head back against the stone, clenching his eyes tight. Those words had been his own, spoken in a half daze in the middle of the night … not long before he had turned his back on the syndicate. He hadn't fathomed the truth in those feverish words.

That asshole, how did he know? Every year, on the anniversary of that cursed day I died to leave the Red Dragons, I face this bullshit … the only way to keep my sanity is the bottom of a god-damned bottle. It couldn't hurt me if I wasn't conscious enough to feel it. To his shame his knees threatened to give out. Every sad sap I ever put a bullet in, every Dragon I betrayed by leaving them to Vicious's nonexistent mercy … every life I took in my wake to the top … they came to execute their vengeance. Every! Year!

"I am alone. I am alone. I am alone." He forced his eyes open—the mantra had not worked.

Julia now stood in Vicious's place, the Colt Commander in her firm grip forcing Spike to stare down the barrel. Her glacial eyes didn't move.

For only a moment, Spike's pupils contracted. At length he half-lidded his eyes, palms backed against the stone, the sword had vanished with Vicious leaving the wound to bleed.

Her eyes stared into his, they said enough, there is no way to ever outrun the enemy within.

Morpheus laughed. "Though I must say, that was a sporting try." He snapped his fingers.

BANG!

The bullet slammed into Spike. It tore through his chest nailing the aorta as he twisted awkwardly. Julia's dead-eyed stare filling his vision. "You are your own worst enemy." Blood smeared down the stone as she walked away from him.

Undying, Spike lay there unable to find enough air to speak, his trembling hand reached out for the figure leaving him. Drowning in the pain and confusion, he couldn't even ponder which hurt worse the wound or the vision.

Morpheus appeared beside him. Cruel fingers lifted and turned his body in agonizing spasms. He forced Spike to stare up at the blood-drenched writing on the gravestone.

SPIKE SPIEGEL

Born June 26th, 2044

Died June 27th, 2068

Morpheus cackled. "You dared to try and play house. You killed yourself, sacrificed everything you ever were for a petty dream, only to have it slip through your hands without an explanation. Grave fool!"

His eyes widened, he couldn't help it as he coughed up blood, the angle making it all the more difficult to clear his airway. No, Morpheus is wrong. The graveyard … she'd been there, waiting. Not the first time. She hadn't been there because … Julia had loved me. She'd tried to protect me. She'd died in my arms on the rooftop when she'd wanted to run … oh God … she stayed and died because of me! He squeezed his eyes tight against the pain. Everything shifted. The moment his weight was released it dropped like a rock.

Morpheus withdrew, smiling like a Cheshire cat.

He's getting inside your head … don't let him. Don't let him know he's gained ground. Stone cold, unreadable. Pushing up from the debris strewn floor, the chain clanked as Spike gave a choking laugh. This was Morpheus's game. To the brink and then pull him back enough to thrust him into it again. Murder, rinse, repeat. "I'm used to taking beatings. So this isn't going to work. You can't break me physically. Not even Vicious succeeded."

Morpheus brought his hands together, cupping the amulet around his neck. "I know. That's why it's not what I am doing. Long ago the groundwork was laid. Long ago someone already broke you like the wild stallion you were. And all this time you have been oblivious to the key of your undoing."

Spike narrowed his eyes, what is he talking about?

Two teenage boys appeared—Spike and Vicious with one hand over the other, tied together in a ceremony as they spoke the words of the blood oath. Mao appeared behind them, his eyes fixed on Vicious.

"The man who saved you sacrificed you for the sake of another. An unworthy disobedient deviant who could not be controlled to the point where he slaughtered his own maker when you abandoned your vow. You knew—the moment the bounty appeared you knew who did it and even why. The sense of duty hammered into you poisoned your rationality, led you to abandon the sanctuary you had found, the new loyalties you had fostered. And all for a dead master who had betrayed you for a worthless cause. A blind sacrifice. That's all you ever amounted to."

Spike's eyes trembled, the truth too damn close to the bone. Morpheus had him there, dead to rights.

"And that isn't even the half of it. There is ... So. Much. More." He caressed the amulet, eyeing Spike. "You are such a complicated mess. I admit I didn't recognize you at first. But truly I should have."

"I have never seen you in my life."

His smile creased around his eyes. "Yes, you have. But you have certainly changed since then, perspective is everything." With a wave of his hand, the man before him changed. More than twenty years shaved off. He wore a long white coat over a dress suit and a discomforting expression grew as his glasses caught the light. The emblem on his coat came into Spike's focus. SOMNUS.

He swallowed, nearly choking at the shock. The image was vaguely familiar, but his tortured brain stumbled over it.

Calmly he straightened his tie. "I admit it, you were very young when we met. But I remember you … a tender young boy held in your father's arms."

Spike gripped his head, fighting to remember the snatches of that dream. That had been a real memory! When was it? Where was it?

"Aww, the poor boy can hardly remember his parents. What a dreadful shame." His voice hardened like iron. "That's the clincher. All this time you have forgotten who they are. Yet another reason the day on that stone bares such graven significance. June 27th, the day you became an orphan. The moment you realized they were dead you banished every memory of them. Can't even remember the faces of the people who gave you life, who loved you so dearly and sacrificed so much. What an ungrateful little shit you were to do a thing like that. Shall I remind you? How about a push … " Morpheus held out the amulet, the lid slightly ajar, the stone within it glowed.

A shadow cast out over the ground. Spike stared up in disbelief into their smiling faces.

Faces! This time … he could see them! Both dressed in lab coats, his father was tall and lanky, barely filling out his suit. The thick rimmed glasses hardly flattered the man's soft features. His eyes were a honeyed brown, the hair dark and just as unruly as Spike's. But he didn't look like a fighter. He was a scientist, through and through. As was … his mother holding a green-haired toddler with an untied shoelace and a bandaid on his knee. Her eyes were vibrant, wide and colorful like a galaxy. Ringlets fell over her shoulders, a deep green close to Spike's own hair color. She stood with an air of authority and inner power. But that smile … that forgiving smile. He knew it the moment he saw it.

Trembling, he fought to stand, reaching a hand toward them. All he wanted in this galaxy was to feel their warm embrace again.

"Ahhh." Morpheus stood between them, savoring Spike's struggle. "May I reintroduce the good doctors Lumen and Lyra Spiegel. Mars's leading minds in neuro-science, employed by the government. It was a shame they refused my offer."

"Offer … " Spike narrowed his eyes. The carnival … he'd been a very young boy back on that distant day. Mother had taken him while Father had to walk off with someone … his eyes focused on Morpheus. The name written on the badge of his lab coat. "Dr. Lysander Selinofoto." They had met!

He placed a hand to his chest and half bowed. "The same. Things would have turned out differently if Lumen hadn't been a stickler and instead shared his research with me. He failed to understand the power it would unlock."

Spike shook his head, still hunched over, fighting to stay conscious. "Research … what research?"

"You were a mere boy. Of course they didn't tell you of their masterful program. They were on the cutting edge. Discovered a compound that reconnected neural pathways. All Lumen and Lyra saw were restoring what patients had lost through injury or disease. Pathetic. They failed to see what their compound could truly achieve if it were adequately applied."

The plaguing nightmare rumbled back, the overheard words—If we don't surrender it and agree to work with them … they're going to take Spike and hold him hostage, force us to comply.

He loathed how his voice shook. "You … you stole their research!"

Morpheus flashed a smile. "How I would have loved to have gotten my hands on you. What an amazing test subject you would have been. So young … so pliable. What a shame you ended up as you did. A stubborn fool. No matter. I have you now, and I mean not to let you slip through my fingers this time." He caressed the amulet. "Here is where the interesting part comes in. I'm afraid you are incorrect. I never got my hands on their work because they went into hiding. By the time I learned they were in that slum crater Deseado they were already dead. Another organization had already attempted to get their hands on them and also failed. Though they were far less tolerant of the refusal to cooperate and put out a hit on them." The grin grew sickeningly sweet. "Do you know who that was? Of course you do, you just were never told the truth."

Spike dragged himself upright, trembling with fury. How can this ass speak so casually about this?

He waved a hand and the mists swirled over a rising skeleton, forming a very familiar stout figure. "After all … you served the very man who ordered their hit."

He barely had the breath for it as his weight lurched forward, "Mao Yenrai."

"Never told you, did he. The man who forged you into a tool for the Red Dragons—made you an orphan."

That was a blow he could never prepare for, Spike's knees completely gave out, dumping him onto his hands and knees. He gasped for air, fighting with the shock. It can't be true … there's no way that could be the truth of it. Mao wouldn't have … would he?

"Mao Yenrai didn't know when he stumbled across you years later in that pool hall. As far as he'd known that missing child had probably succumbed to the wasteland of that crater, as was the nature of survival of the fittest. It was a shock for him to learn he'd purchased the child of previous two marks."

Spike snapped a gaze at him. Purchased?

"Oh yes, he paid for the little runt that conned him. You were bought and paid for. But he only learned about the connection after. He knew—shortly after taking you in. He knew damn well as he molded you into a duty-bound little shit. So unlike your father, you would serve the organization he refused to on pain of death. Ohhh, I'm sorry … did finding that out break you?"

"It's … not … true … " He couldn't move, each breath harder than the last. Spike was suffocating from the weight of this revelation. Buried memories of his parents rushing like a torrent—fear and paranoia in their eyes as they'd held him tight, too tight. They had known they were hunted. What had they hoped would become of him? What had they dreamed their only child would grow up to be? For most of his life he'd blindly served, not just the organization, but the very man who had orchestrated the murder his parents. It's all a lie … my entire life … it's all a lie!

Morpheus clicked his tongue. "Many a Red Dragon has ended up in my clutches. And Yenrai apparently had a loose tongue when lubricated by liquor. I had but to search their captive minds to discover the truth. This is what made it so easy to keep you here, even while two of your friends slipped from my grasp. The amount of shit that you never dealt with in your life, all the suppressed regrets, the skeletons you have collected in that bloodbath that was your life … it is delicious. Now … if you will excuse me, I believe I have left you with enough to ponder while I attend to your friend and her baggage."

A passage opened in the wall, Faye's frantic sobbing tore Spike from his stupor. "Faye!" He scrambled to his feet, racing until the chain jerked taught, throwing him to the floor and forcing the air out of him. He reached toward her panicked eyes as the portal closed, leaving him alone in the darkness smothered beneath the avalanche of his shattering past.

Did Morpheus even know, that … more than anything … hurt him. Knowing his family was in danger and being rendered incapable of helping them. His tears fell, hot drops against his clenched fists against the floor. He inhaled deeply and screamed his rage into the darkness.

Jet's hand ached from gripping the guard rail on Spike's hospital bed. He ground his teeth. "Ed. I don't care what it takes—we're getting them out."

See You Space Cowboy